The Spunky Kitchen: Sweet and Sassy Venison Marinara with black olives, paired with Old Vine Zinfandel

There's a little bit of everything in this sauce: Sweet, salty, savory and lot and lots of tender venison. Heather Lynn Peters

It’s always great when the hubs bags a buck, or, in our case, a doe or two as well.

The freezer fills up fast, and you’ve got loads of meal ideas.

Unless of course, you've used up most of those ideas and you're left with pounds of frozen venison staring back at you when you open the freezer.

The culinary creativity begins to wan. Does the thought of making venison tacos one more time this month makes your cringe?

Well here's what I advise: Pour a glass of wine, leaf through a few cooking magazines, scroll through your favorite foodie sites and then roll up your sleeves.

That’s what I did.

I unthawed a pound of venison marked “tenderloin steak” and found a couple of jars of sauce in the pantry. I wanted a Mediterranean flavor, but less savory and more sweet, and craved the saltiness of black olives and tang from chunky bite-size tomatoes.

I also didn’t feel like standing over the stove. So I created “Sweet & Sassy Venison Marina with Black Olives” and let it cook itself in a crock pot while I went to work.

Here’s what you need. (This is probably my favorite venison recipe I’ve created so far.)

Ingredients:

1. 1 lb of venison tenderloin chunks/steaks, sliced fairly thick

2. 1 small can of whole black olives, sliced. (About 1 cup total)

3. A handful of cherry tomatoes

4. 1 cup of brown sugar

5. 1 ½ jars of your favorite grocery-store bought marina (I used a jar of Prego with green peppers and mushrooms and combined it with a half-jar of Barilla marinara)

6. ¼ cup of grated Parmesan

7. 1-3 teaspoons of minced garlic

8. 3 tablespoons of pasta water

9. Salt and pepper to taste

10. 1 box of angel hair pasta, cooked al dente.

11. Two tablespoons of olive oil

12. ¼ cup of water

Directions: (Crock pot version)

1. Brown the venison tenderloin pieces in a hot pan coated with olive oil for just a minute or two.

2. Transport the venison to crock pot.

3. In a large mixing bowl, add the sauces, the olives, tomatoes, sugar and Parmesan cheese and stir.

4. Pour sauce over tenderloin, stir together and add about a half cup of water.

5. Let it simmer in crock pot for about 8 hours on low.

6. When it’s done, remove sauce from crock pot and pour into pan on stove and keep it on a low simmer. Boil noodles for about 7 minutes in the meantime.

7. Spoon pasta water out of pan and into sauce. Stir well, remove from heat.

8. Drain noodles and drizzle with olive oil so they separate.

9. Pour sauce over the noodles and top with Parmesan sauce and a black olive.

Wine:

I had a glass of Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel (a nice, rich red zinfandel) with this meal. You can find it just about anywhere, most Meijer stores, for about $9 this week, regularly $13.99. Let it breath about an hour before pouring.